


Cool Down

by Askellie (NadaNine)



Series: SLAUE [12]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Serious Injuries, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 02:57:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16845787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NadaNine/pseuds/Askellie
Summary: “-didn’t really mean it, you know?” Chara was saying to Sans, sounding…not guilty, but as contrite as Papyrus has ever heard them. “It would be a lot more boring here without you.”Aftermath of 'Trial by Fire'.





	Cool Down

**Author's Note:**

> A follow-up to Trial by Fire! The focus here is solely on aftercare and consequences, with only vague descriptions of the original trauma, so it’s much safer for reading. For those who want a slightly more detailed description of the previous fic, I’ve included a summary at the end. [Trigger warnings for description of rape, torture, cannibalism] Reading that is totally optional! Otherwise just enjoy the (mostly) fluff and comfort.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Aftercare, descriptions of injury (burns, broken bones) and trauma (magical dysfunction). Sans has PTSD but is mostly insensate for this fic. Papyrus feels his sins crawling on his back (and so does Chara, to a lesser extent).

Sans’s door has been left ajar.

Papyrus’s hand strays immediately to his pocket, but his keys are in their rightful place. He’s sure he locked the door before he left, so that means either the room’s sole occupant and owner opened it from the inside, or _someone_ has been disobedient, and there’s only one other person besides Papyrus with a key. His mouth twists in a stern frown. He’s feeling the formation of a Chara-shaped headache as he stalks up to the door, already hearing the sweet intonations of their voice from within.

“-didn’t really mean it, you know?” they were saying, sounding...not _guilty_ , but as contrite as Papyrus has ever heard them. “It would be a lot more boring here without you.”

Papyrus pushes the door open the rest of the way, letting his body serve in its place as a more formidable barricade. He looms like he thinks he can intimidate them (though it’s never worked before), arms crossed. “Chara.”

They look up, already smiling. “Oh! See, Sansy, I told you he’d be back soon.”

Sans doesn’t respond, or even give any indication that he’s listening. It’s hard to tell if he can. His eye-lights are dim, his skull sagging so heavily on his neck Papyrus is concerned it might fall off again. It had taken more than a day of his and Blue’s combined healing energy to convince Sans’s bones to rejoin, and the ligaments were still loose and tenuous, frayed thin just like Sans’s magic.

“I think he’s really worried about you,” Chara adds in a conspiratorial whisper, not at all bothered by Papyrus’s sharp glare of disapproval. If they’d wanted their visit to be a secret, Papyrus would never have known about it. They want his irritation, probably even the scolding he would normally give them. He knows better than to give it to them.

“Out,” he says, voice flat and cold.

They hesitate, perhaps wondering how else they might test his patience, but the expression on his face must dissuade them. They look momentarily discomforted, and perhaps they can feel their sins crawling on their back. With a graceful bounce they hop off Sans’s bed and head for the door, pausing momentarily in the gap Papyrus left for them.

“My room’s been kinda lonely, Papy,” Chara says, somehow managing to make the words sound like both a plea and a warning. “We should play again soon.”

“When Sans is better,” he replies, keeping his tone admirably steady. Chara’s only half his height, but he’s always starkly aware of the difference their humanity makes; how much more dense and sturdy their body is, how much strength is in their soul. It’s difficult to keep his gaze forward, refusing to look at them or acknowledge whatever emotions might be present (or absent) in their expression. After a moment they brush past him, the soft padding of their footsteps receding down the corridor, and Papyrus allows himself a deep sigh of relief as he shuts the door behind them.

He can’t say no to them forever. That they’re even allowing any pretense of discipline is only because they enjoy playing the role of a petulant child. While the former King and Queen might have once been in a position to set proper boundaries on Chara, Papyrus’s influence exists only because Chara allows it.

But for now, they’re indulging him, which means he can keep everyone safe, and more importantly, he can focus all his energy on making sure Sans gets a chance to heal.

He takes a seat at the chain beside the bed, reaching for Sans’s limp hand. “Hey there, buddy. Sorry about that. They didn’t rattle you too much, did they?”

He doesn’t think so, but he checks Sans over carefully anyway, delicately cradling Sans’s carpels between his own and sending out a thin tendril of magic to assess the cohesion of his limbs. The invisible ligaments between the bones are still holding, albeit tenuously. Normally a skeleton’s bones are like magnets, compelled to draw together in the correct orientations, but for some reason, Sans’s body has lost its natural polarity. His hand feels brittle in Papyrus’s grip, and the taller skeleton takes care to set it aside before drawing back the blankets, discouraged by what he finds beneath.

Slick cyan magic has been oozing out from between Sans’s joints, soaking into the bedding around him and through the bandages around his ribs and spine. It’s a waste of what precious little magic Sans has to spare, but for some reason the unusual seepage has persisted despite not serving any particular purpose. It’s thicker than sweat would be, an almost gel-like slime, not quite fully formed and solid like ecto-flesh would be. A part of Papyrus wonders if Sans’s body is still trying to protect itself from the imagined heat of the stovetop, desperately trying to extrude a protective layer with magic too weak to form properly.

Until Sans is awake enough to reign his magic in, there’s nothing they can do except try to keep him clean and comfortable. With movements that have become far too practiced over the last couple of days, Papyrus gingerly peels back the sticky sheets to extract Sans from the unseemly pool of his own fluids.

“Okay, buddy, time for another bath.” He’s not exactly sure how coherent Sans currently is, but it feels more appropriate (less guilt-inducing) to talk to him like he can still listen. It’s better than the stark silence and fragile clicking of bone against bone as he lifts Sans into his arms, careful to support his spine and skull as one would a delicate infant. Liquid magic soaks into his shirt, but he pays it no mind.

“I’m starting to think you’re enjoying these,” he continues conversationally. “Must be nice having someone else pampering you, doing all the work.”

The playful note of complaint is entirely for Sans’s benefit. He could ask Blue to do it. Hell, he could probably ask Edge. He’s become well-behaved enough to be trusted with other members of the Harem, and Papyrus is sure he’d never hurt Sans.

But Papyrus chooses to do it himself. It’s his job, and his penance. He should have found a way to keep Chara from teetering too close to the lines they’d promised not to cross, but perhaps both of them had placed too much trust in the value of Chara’s affection. Their capacity to like someone had never stopped them from having an equal capacity to hurt them.

He takes Sans to the harem member’s shared bathroom, only a few doors down the hallway. The sleek tiles have soaked the heat from the room, leaving the air uncomfortably cold. He chooses to keep Sans on his lap as he starts to run the bath, trying to impart as much of his own body heat until the steam can chase away the chill. Normally he wouldn’t worry -- skeletons aren’t very susceptible to temperature changes -- but Sans has been fluctuating between high fevers and bone-rattling shivers. The more stress he’s under, the more magic Sans keeps secreting, so Papyrus has been trying his best keep him stabilised.

At this point, though, both his own clothing and Sans’s bandages are a complete loss. He unwraps Sans first, checking on the burns beneath. The bone is still discolored, grey and brown patches mottling his ribs like bruising, but most of the hairline fissures from heat stress have healed up. After years of practice, both he and Blue are especially adept at fusing broken bones back together.

His hand hovers over Sans’s sternum, hesitating. He should check the state of Sans’s soul. He needs to ensure Sans’s HP is stable, that there’s no damage from the stress of his ordeal, but ever since what happened to Edge he hasn’t been able to bring himself to touch another soul. He’d begged Blue to do it last time, forced to trust in his brother’s inexperienced manipulation of gravity magic. Sans’s soul had been dim but whole, though that could easily change when he woke up and the aftermath of the trauma gained its full impact.

He reasons that trying to handle Sans’s soul might just compound any damage, and guiltily leaves it be. Instead he strips out of his own clothing, having found it much easier to simply join Sans in the bath than try and maneuver his small body from beside it. He lowers them both into the water, Sans cradled across his lap, loose and pliant in a way that might have seemed like relaxation in other circumstances. Papyrus allowed himself a moment to pretend, letting some of the tension ease out of his own spine.

Even with his duties lightened in his abstinence from Chara’s usual entertainment, he’s tired...the kind of tired that leaves him with insomnia and nicotine jitters, sneaking out of his and Blue’s shared room at midnight so he won’t wake his bedmate with anxious pacing. Watching over Sans instead doesn’t give him much in the way of peace, but channeling his unsettled energy into small bursts of healing means that eventually exhaustion overtakes him without too many bad dreams. The smoky haze of Cinderin’s kitchen and the smell of burning ecto-flesh are still far too vivid in his memory. He’s desperate to vent the horror of that ugly evening, but with Sans insensate Papyrus is bereft of his usual confidant.

With a deep sigh, Papyrus adjusts his grip on Sans and reaches for a sponge. The bath water is warm, carefully adjusted not to be too hot. The last thing he wants is to give Sans any more bad experiences with heat. Already the water is tainted with a light, luminous blue as Sans’s magic begins to disperse, and the color deepens as Papyrus carefully brushes him down with the sponge.

He’s working his way down Sans’s back, sponge dipping around the curves of the scapula, when there’s a minute shift of movement against him. Papyrus might have dismissed it if it hadn’t been followed up by a soft, rough murmur. “Hmm?”

Papyrus freezes, his gaze tracking back to Sans’s face. “Hey buddy, you with me?”

Sans’s eyelights flicker, spluttering momentarily into complex darkness before the left eye suddenly ignites with fierce, solid cyan. Sans’s expression doesn’t change, but his eye moves with eerie focus, orbiting the rim of the socket to take in their surroundings before alighting back on Papyrus with grim intensity. Mere nakedness doesn’t even begin to address how exposed he felt under the radiant flare of Sans’s socket.

“Uh…” Between one moment and the next, the quiet peace is shattered. The air feels thick and dangerous. A high-pitched whine seems to reverberate inside his skull, building to a grating crescendo. Papyrus feels his arms shake, and there’s a powerful urge to shove Sans away, to hide from the unsettling judgement in that unnatural pupil. Instead, he swallows dryly and resums carefully petting Sans’s shoulder blade with the sponge. “It’s okay. It’s just me here. You’re safe now, it’s fine. Just you and me in a nice bath, having a good time, yeah?”

He’s distantly grateful that his experience with Edge has given him an excellent ‘soothing the savage beast’ tone. He would never have expected to use it on Sans, but for a moment he’s wholly convinced that Sans could dust him, and that he would fully deserve it...then Sans blinks and his eye is a simple pale orb once more, its outline sharp for only a moment before it hazes away to a soft glow. “Hnn…”

Papyrus waits a another minute, but that seems to be the extent of Sans’s lucidity for the day. He doesn’t react any further, and though Papyrus makes sure to be thorough in cleaning his bones, he works faster than he normally would, extremely unnerved.

He’s never had any reason to fear Sans, but suddenly he’s not sure he knows what the other is capable of, and whether his waking will mean anything good for himself and Chara.

**Author's Note:**

> [TOTALLY OPTIONAL SUMMARY OF TRIAL BY FIRE, MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR RAPE, TORTURE AND CANNIBALISM/DOLCETT CONTENT]
> 
> Sans infiltrates another human household looking for blackmail material and useful information, and is taken captive. Feigning innocence, pretending he was simply a lost and desperate monster looking for shelter, he nonetheless ends up imprisoned. The guards unfortunately have some prior experience with monsters with versatile physical forms, and choose to lock a magical suppressing collar through the ischium on Sans’s pelvis, preventing him from dislocating any bones to escape. 
> 
> In captivity, Sans briefly meets a fire elemental named Cinderin (Underfell Grillby) who Sans hopes might be either convinced or manipulated to help him escape. Talking to him yields no clear opportunities, though Cinderin implies that he will introduce Sans to his human Mistress. 
> 
> The next night, Cinderin comes to retrieve Sans for the meeting, and brings Sans to his kitchen. Without magic and intimidated by Cinderin’s high LV, Sans is forced to be complicit, allowing himself to be bound and eventually threaded onto a large roasting skewer (non fatally or painfully – it just passes through his bones to hold him in place). 
> 
> Cinderin’s Mistress, Valory, arrives, along with Chara and Papyrus, having invited them over for ‘dinner’. Her own perverse tastes have given her a sadistic pleasure in devouring monsters, having Cinderin cook them slowly and keeping them alive so the flesh remains intact (instead of turning to dust) for her consumption. Knowing Chara’s own sadistic tendencies and their particular interest in skeletons, she’s hoping to gain their favor by providing what they most enjoy – deviant entertainment (and good food). 
> 
> Neither Valory or Cinderin are aware that Sans belongs to Chara. Sans considers revealing the connection to derail the dinner, but trusts that Chara will find some other way to extract him. Chara suggests they have some ‘fun’ with their food beforehand, and proposes a challenge: both Cinderin and Pap will fuck Sans over the surface of Cinderin’s hot grillplate. If Sans successfully satisfies both of them, he’ll be spared, but for every moment it takes him he’ll be slowly scalding his bones and ecto-flesh on the stove. 
> 
> Even with low HP, the stove lacks any intent to harm Sans, so the damage he revives is purely physical (although agonising). Pap does his best to help Sans succeed, but Cinderin is less rushed. Nonetheless, Sans manages to survive and is taken off the stove, badly burned but conscious. 
> 
> Unfortunately the torture has only whetted both Valory and Chara’s respective appetites, and rather than sparing Sans fully, they propose putting Sans back on the skewer to finish cooking him properly. Cinderin attempts to comply, but in his panic Sans doesn’t unsummon his ectoflesh (a full torso with female genetalia) and the skewer can’t pass through him properly. The stress against his magic causes it to backfire, and Sans literally falls to pieces, his bones dissembled and his magic reduces to unformed sludge.
> 
> Cinderin is both disappointed and disgusted by the mess, unwilling to continue cooking with ruined ingredients. Chara assures Valory that Sans will probably dust shortly, and suggests they depart to find another, better meal. Papyrus is left behind to ‘clean up’, and is given the opportunity to rescue Sans and put him back together.


End file.
